A hydrocarbon well (oil or gas) is typically finished using a device known as a perforating gun. This device includes a steel tube containing a set of devices, typically referred to as “shaped charges” each of which includes a charge of high explosive and a small amount of copper. The tube is lowered into the well, and the high explosive charges are detonated, fragmenting the copper and accelerating the resultant copper particles to a speed on the order of 30 mach, so that it blasts through the wall of the steel tube, through any steel casing forming the wall of the well, and perforates the surrounding rock, thereby permitting oil or gas or both to flow into the well.
Unfortunately, the resultant perforation has some characteristics that inhibit the flow of liquid or gas into the perforation from the surrounding rock. As the copper particles push into the rock it pushes the rock immediately in its path rearward and to the side, and also heats this rock, resulting in perforation surfaces that are less permeable to the flow of liquids and gasses than would otherwise be the case.